Brahmanda

Brahmanda is a Sanskrit term meaning the cosmic egg, combining brahman (universal principle) with anda (egg). In Hindu cosmology, Brahmanda denotes the organized whole of the universe as a shell-like sphere that contains the cosmic creation, often described as including both the macrocosm and its inner seed.

In many accounts, the universe begins with Hiranyagarbha, the golden womb or seed of creation, which resides within the cosmic waters. From Hiranyagarbha the Brahmanda expands, giving rise to the worlds and beings that inhabit it. The Brahmanda is sometimes imagined as a spherical cosmos that undergoes cycles of creation, preservation, and dissolution (kalpa), rising anew in a continuing process of cosmic ays and dissolution.

The term is also the name of a major Hindu text, the Brahmanda Purana, which presents cosmological, genealogical, and mythological material. Beyond this, Brahmanda is used in various scriptures and traditions to refer to the entire universe or to the outer shell that encloses the living and nonliving within it. In philosophical and esoteric contexts, the Brahmanda symbolizes the macrocosm and often serves as a metaphor for the relationship between Brahman, the ultimate reality, and the manifested world.

Overall, Brahmanda conveys a view of the universe as a self-contained, egg-shaped cosmos with a latent seed of creation at its center, continually cycling through birth, maintenance, and dissolution. It appears across Hindu literature as both a cosmological symbol and a descriptive term for the totality of existence.